My best news all year!

See Scott's post...

Love, Ally

True Love

A love poem from the very center of life—from that mid-stage that is so often rushed and undefined, but is memorably chronicled in the poems of Sharon Olds.

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True Love In the middle of the night, when we get up after making love, we look at each other in complete friendship, we know so fully what the other has been doing. Bound to each other like mountaineers coming down from a mountain, bound with the tie of the delivery-room, we wander down the hall to the bathroom, I can hardly walk, I hobble through the granular shadowless air, I know where you are with my eyes closed, we are bound to each other with huge invisible threads, our sexes muted, exhausted, crushed, the whole body a sex—surely this is the most blessed time of my life, our children asleep in their beds, each fate like a vein of abiding mineral not discovered yet. I sit on the toilet in the night, you are somewhere in the room, I open the window and snow has fallen in a steep drift, against the pane, I look up, into it, a wall of cold crystals, silent and glistening, I quietly call to you and you come and hold my hand and I say I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.

Surprising - guess it's only us old ladies propagating the myth that everyone's waiting to have children...

Poll Results from PlanningFamily.com

How old were you (will you be) when your first child was born?
Under the age of 20
33%
21 to 25
35%
26 to 30
19%
31 to 35
9%
36 to 40
3%
Over 40
1%

Beauty

Snowy Night

by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl

in the blue dark

tossed

an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into

the world, in which,

a quarter of a mile away, I happened

to be standing.

I couldn't tell

which one it was -

the barred or the great-horned

ship of the air -

it was that distant. But, anyway,

aren't there moments

that are better than knowing something,

and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars

filling the dark trees

that one could easily imagine

its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose

if this were someone else's story

they would have insisted on knowing

whatever is knowable - would have hurried

over the fields

to name it - the owl, I mean.

But it's mine, this poem of the night,

and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter

falling through the air. I love this world,

but not for its answers.

And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name -

and I wish great welcome to the snow,

whatever its severe and comfortless

and beautiful meaning.

oh, good times

babymama in a field of Alabama clover

Electronic quiet time, anyone?

Saw this on Planningfamily.com:

"On average, children two to five years old spend 32 hours a week in front of a TV and they will have watched an average of 8,000 murders before they finish elementary school. Is this replacing healthy activities such as playing outside, eating dinner as a family, reading, and building family unity? Well-planned family time can be a foundation for joy and influence to last a lifetime. Family time provides your children with feelings of love, security, stability, and support.

"If you are trying to conceive, or are pregnant, the TV could still be getting in the way of your relationship. The average adult watches more than 28 hours of TV a week (that's two straight months a year)! If you're stuck in a rut, if TV has taken over, or if you aren't sure what activities will keep everyone happy, here are some helpful hints for fun family-time activities. Put the remote down and play on!"

Wow - disturbing stats. Do you think that's true? Needless to say, I promptly printed out the "backyard games" list, so Frisbee, here we come!

~Ally